Garnet: Gold and Ghosts
Tucked away in the mountains outside of Lincoln, the town of Garnet rivals ghost towns like Bannack and Virginia City as one of the best preserved ghost towns in Montana. The isolated town, deep in the heart of the Garnet Mountains, boasts 30 original buildings, kept in a state of arrested decay by the BLM and the Garnet Preservation Association. The buildings include cabins, hotels, saloons, and blacksmith shops, as well as a building renovated for a gift shop and two cabins available for rent, allowing you to stay in this historic Montana ghost town. With numerous trails and a scenic byway, the area offers plenty of activities throughout the year, including guided tours of Garnet ghost town during the summer.
Arrested Decay
Garnet, Montana’s history differs slightly from many other Montana ghost towns. The Garnet mountains saw some placer mining for gold during the 1860s, but the silver boom during the 1870s lured miners away. The Silver Panic of 1893 turned many Montana silver mines into ghost towns, and displaced miners who once again headed for the Garnet Mountains. By 1895, Garnet’s boom began in earnest. By 1898, Garnet’s population had swollen to 1,000, including a surprising number of families and children as seen by the robust school house at the top of the gulch. However, by 1900 gold became more difficult to extract, and by 1905, only around 150 miners remained in town. A fire in 1912 destroyed many buildings, and by 1917, the town had become abandoned. For a brief moment from 1934-1940 gold prices doubled and miners again returned to Garnet. After that brief resurgence, the town quickly faded and continued to deteriorate until restoration efforts began in the 1970s.
Winter Wakings
Garnet has long since given up the ghost. Or has it? Wintertime visitors claim that the town is far livelier than you might expect. The road closes in December (or earlier, depending on the snow), but visitors who make the trek on snowmobile, snowshoes, or skis claim that the town is hopping. According to Ellen Baumler (Montana’s ghost story historian extraordinaire), music, chatter, and dancing are frequently reported coming from Kelley’s Saloon, one of the better preserved buildings in the town. The din falls silent as soon as anyone (living) tries to open the door, though.
Baumler wrote that “doors open and close inside the hollow buildings, and footsteps trudge up the stairway in the old hotel.” A skeptic might dismiss this as the winter wind playing through the abandoned town. Less easy to dismiss are the spectral figures in old-fashioned clothing that wander the winter streets, or the footprints that appear in the fresh snow.
The Ghost of the General Store
Once, visitors to the town approached a volunteer, asking about an angry looking white haired old man in a three piece suit glaring from the doorway of the icehouse. The volunteer didn’t see anyone in the doorway and mollified the visitors with something noncommittal. What she didn’t mention was that the icehouse used to contain the lockbox with all the gold from the local mines, and their description exactly matched that of Mr. Davey, the cantankerous owner of the general store who used to be in charge of the lockbox until his death in 1947.
If you have the hankering to pester the ghost of Mr. Davey (or just want to visit one of the best preserved ghost towns in Montana), we have everything you need to know about visiting Garnet in this post. A day trip to Garnet makes an ideal addition to stays in Missoula, Seeley Lake, Ovando, Lincoln or even Philipsburg.
